Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State has stated that he backed Nyesom Wike of Rivers State to become the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate (PDP).
InsightnaijaTV has learned. Atiku defeated all other candidates by a large majority in the primary election conducted at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja on Saturday.
Atiku, who received 371 votes to defeat Wike’s 237 votes, will be the PDP’s presidential candidate in Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election.
Ikpeazu said he supported Wike’s presidential ambition because he was gutsy and straightforward in an interview with Dickson Iroegbu on Friday in Abuja.
During the clamour for the PDP Presidential ticket to be zoned to the South East, the governor said that he endorsed Wike after noticing a huge plot against the Igbo.
Despite the PDP’s failure to zone its presidential ticket to the region, Ikpeazu indicated that the South East would continue to support the party.
He said: “My argument and my support were for a President of Igbo extraction. First of all, the conversation of how a person can become a President in a country like Nigeria that is multi-dimensional, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural requires that you engage and you talk about it.
“You would want to convince people, and in doing that, you must be strategic on how to play the politics of emergence. I said the first thing to do as a Governor is to, first of all, begin to say that the Presidency must come to the South and we met in Lagos.
“For us, my strategy was for us to get it in the South so that we can begin to micro-zone. I discovered that the conspiracy against the Igbo man is palpable. You can feel it, you can touch it.
“My support for a South Easterner is not necessarily that we haven’t taken a shot at the presidency, but because the Igbo man believes in Nigeria more than any other tribe.
“The Igbo man is not even prepared to abandon Sambisa for any terrorist or any bandit. We can trade in Sambisa. For that, we have demonstrated our Nigerians. If there is a person who believes in one Nigeria, it is an Igbo man.
”For instance, Presidency is important, but of greater importance to an Igbo man is whatever that can facilitate Trade and Commerce.
“The people of the South East can only treat people bad if they have a better option. Fire is not better than a frying pan, there is no point comparing an elephant with an ant, PDP understands and manages our mechanisms better.”
